Spiritual Abuse

Is it Leadership or Control

Have you ever wondered what makes a leader an excellent leader?  How do you know if your cherished leader is also an excellent leader.  What types of leadership behavior should be considered spiritual abuse? How does Charisma fit into spiritual leadership? These are very important questions that all earnest Christian’s should learn the answers to.

There are some very unfortunate things occurring in certain churches today.  Frequently the deeds of a few bad apple leaders ruin by association the reputation of the many great ones.  There are cases where leaders use their position of authority to manipulate those dependent on them for guidance to get earthly gain for them selves. These bad deed doers are most frequently found in Evangelical churches, churches that are trying to follow the Bible (Matthew 28:19) and take their message to the world.  These churches usually consider the Bible to be true, and to be the inspired word of God, and the leader to be a sort of mouthpiece for that word. No single denomination is guilty of this. It is usually the fault of a limited number of leaders, pastors, and ministers.  In many cases, those in higher leadership authority will just look the other way to prevent their organization from being embarrassed.  This refusal to act makes them become accomplices the the deeds.  What are these deeds?  I can list a few type of spiritual abuse here to give you a better idea.

  • Wrongly applying God’s word to force others to do their will
  • Creating new doctrine not based in the scriptures to gain power
  • Control tactic, threats of dis-fellowship
  • Control tactic, personal attacks to damage self esteem
  • Control tactic, public embarrassment, inducing fear
  • Threats of Hell if you don’t do everything you are told
  • Put themselves between a member and God, then threaten to cut off connection
  • Taking advantage of naive members financially or sexually
  • Take over members free will, effectively putting them in virtual chains

As was said earlier, it only takes a few of these bad apples to ruin the overall view of all the other spiritual leaders. Even though many claim to be in God’s will with their particular leadership ideas, we can learn the truth. The God has provided a very clear understanding through the Bible on the subject of leadership. This includes expected leader character traits, life skills, and other guidelines. Check out our sister site Leadership.Apostolic.com where Bible Leader Character and principles of leadership are discussed with true-life examples.